[imagesource: Dado Ruvic/Reuters]

Roughly 2 000 South Africans, and thousands of others around the world, put themselves on the line during the COVID-19 vaccine trials to speed up the usually long and arduous process of getting an inoculant approved.

It was a brave and selfless decision, and one that has ensured, through successful human trials, that manufacturing could begin on vaccines that could save millions of lives.

All that is standing in the way of herd immunity at this point is the cost of the vaccine and whether or not countries have the economic means to secure enough doses to kick it off.

South Africa has managed to secure 20 million doses, some of which have already arrived in the country.

If you’d like to check out the progress of the vaccine, starting in March last year, head here and scroll down to the bottom of the article.

Some of the first to receive the jab will be frontline workers like healthcare professionals, but according to a poll conducted by the Western Cape Health Department, as reported by TimesLIVE, only 54% of health workers want to be vaccinated, another 26% were unsure, and 19% said they would decline.

A nurse, speaking under the pseudonym Chantel Williams, outlined her reasons for saying no.

“I see patients dying from the virus in our hospital every day so I know how vicious the virus is. But I’m not putting myself on the line to be vaccinated first. It is too risky,” the Cape Town mother of three told the Sunday Times this week.

“I feel that the process of developing the vaccines was rushed and I am suspicious of the science behind it. I am the breadwinner in my family and should I develop any adverse side effects my children will have no one to support them.”

Another Cape Town nurse, who has overcome COVID-19, says:

“If I survived Covid-19, why should I take a vaccine that I don’t even know what it contains? I’m not willing to be a guinea pig,” she said.

“As healthcare workers we have been battling on our own, sometimes having difficulties getting PPE [personal protective equipment] and the government didn’t care so much. Suddenly now we must be prioritised for a vaccine? I don’t trust this whole vaccination process. The leaders must take the vaccine first and let’s see how they respond to it.”

She’s not wrong on the PPE front, and asking some politicians to take the vaccine first isn’t a bad idea, but because we have limited doses coming in, healthcare professionals have been prioritised.

Some have also complained that there isn’t enough information for them to make an informed choice, but Barry Schoub, chair of the Vaccine Ministerial Advisory Committee, says that that information will be made available soon.

While you can exercise your constitutional right not to be vaccinated, the consequences of that decision could be catastrophic.

As vaccinologist Professor Shabir Madhi told TimesLIVE, that, along with the current delay in the acquisitions and the unclear vaccine programme as a whole in South Africa, could mean a third wave of the virus, killing more people who fall into the at-risk category.

As he told The Daily Maverick the new variant of the virus that we’re seeing came about because “a large percentage of the population became infected and for the virus to survive it needs to somehow evade the immune response that has been induced against it”.

The virus will continue to mutate, becoming stronger with every evolution, and can only be stopped with mass inoculation.

Professor Linda-Gail Bekker, deputy director of the University of Cape Town’s Desmond Tutu HIV Centre, cautioned that if only a few people get the jab, we’re not going to be able to control this.

“It needs to feed off itself and fuel the fire. If you don’t dampen it sufficiently then it will continue to burn.

That’s the risk we run – yes, we might get some individual benefit but we won’t get the collective benefit if not enough people get vaccinated,” she explained.

She also points to the selfishness of assuming that if others get vaccinated, those who choose not to can rely on them for protection.

She cautions that some might say, “‘I’m going to rely on my neighbour,’ but if everyone says that then we’re going to end up with not enough people getting vaccinated. So, we need enough people in the collective to say, ‘Okay, I will be the person to step forward and do this. The number we’ve heard is two-thirds, and we’ve heard this from the vaccine committee, who are experts, that 67% of the population need to have received the vaccine in order for us to receive this secondary benefit.”

There is ample evidence that suggests that the vaccine is safe and efficient.

If you’re keen to read more about it, The Daily Maverick rounds much of it up here.

I don’t know about you, but having spent part of the weekend with someone who has had to bury both of their parents in the last week because of the virus, I’m willing to do whatever it takes to beat this thing, save lives, and get back to something resembling ‘normal’.

[source:timeslive&timeslive&dailymav]